We are the David Wilson Library Research Services Team. Helping researchers with everything from literature searching to open research to publication impact. Blogging items of interest to PGRs, ECRs and researchers.

Thesis Submission
If you wish to be included in the January graduation ceremony you must have submitted an eThesis and completed/signed Final Submission Form to the Library, along with a copy of your bound thesis or confirmation that your bound thesis will be delivered to us by Print Services in the New Year.

All theses submitted during the closed period will be confirmed with the Graduate School Office on 3rd January 2017 and will be eligible for the January ceremony.

This week I've been finalising the next Research Elevenses series for January 2017. Elevenses is our seminar series that provides briefings for researchers on the issues that matter. These can about new tools for research, policy updates, or methods of discovering information. We will reveal the January program next week. Before we do, I thought I would take a look at the 'greatest hits'. We record and republish the talks to share them widely. The viewing stats reveal that the following are the Top 5 most viewed recordings. Click on the links below to watch the videos. 1. Unlocking the REF: Text mining to show your impacthttps://connect.le.ac.uk/p79lknoeq43/

The Library offers several services to help you publish and disseminate your research. We can help you publish reports, journals and conference proceedings. We also support the publishing of digital collections.

Research publications The Library can help you to publish one-off reports in an open access format. See this example from the SAPPHIRE Group in Health Sciences. If you want to start a new open access journal or conference proceedings, we have our own version of Open Journal Systems (OJS). This is journal management and publishing platform for academic publications. Articles published through this system are free to any reader, and no APCs are charged to authors. Please contact Library Research Services for more information: librarians@le.ac.uk

Digital collections Some researchers will be collecting materials as part of a project, and may want to publish them online. The Library supports two platforms to do this:

Finding University of Leicester Theses
Browse the theses in your Department
If you want to look at previous theses within your Department or subject then choose the 'Research Archive' search on the library homepage and search on 'your department theses' e.g.

This will open the Leicester Research Archive - scroll down and you will see the Theses Collection for the Department:

You can then browse the theses:

If you would like to read or download a particular thesis - click on the link and scroll down to the PDF option:

You will then be able to read or download the thesis unless it has an embargo in place, in which case the record will state there is an embargo:

Search by keyword or author
Go to the Leicester Research Archive homepage: https://lra.le.ac.uk/
Use the search box in the top right hand corner:

1.More BooksMore Books is our scheme where you can
request books for the Library to buy. This can be books we don't have, or
books you think we need to have more copies of. The service is for in-print
titles that are relevant for your research. Click on the link, login with your IT username and
password, and then fill in as much of the form as you can. It is free to place
a request.
We aim to respond to you within 24 hours. We can't guarantee to buy
everything; but we take all suggestions seriously and use them to help
plan the collections. 2.Document Supply Sometimes it may be better to place a document supply request (or
'inter-library loan' at other institutions). Here we try to get a copy of
the book you want from another …

You have a reference for a journal article - how do you check whether we have access to it?
Check Library Search
Search for the article title in the library search on the library homepage

If the library has access to the article it should be one of the first search results:
Click on View It
Click on the link next to "Full text available at:" - this will take you to the full text of the article to read or download.
I can't find it via Library Search - what next? Check Google Scholar for an open access version
Search for the article on Google Scholar. If there is an open access version available then a link or PDF link will be provided:

Don't forget that you can also link Google Scholar to library resources.
It's not available via the library or Google Scholar - what next?Place a document supply request
PGR/PhD students and staff are allowed 25 free document supply requests per year. The library will try and get a copy of the journal article for you from the Brit…

One of the best ways to find out about new research in your field is to attend a regular research seminar. Speakers present new work before it is published, and allow the audience to ask questions and discuss their findings. Seminars are also a great way to meet new people from inside and outside the university.

There are many regular seminars at Leicester that PhD students can attend. You may already know about the one run by your department, but it is worth having a look at others, especially given the strong push for interdisciplinary research. Venturing outside your usual field can stimulate new ideas for your own research project.

Below is a list of active seminars for 2016/17. If anyone would like to be included in this list, email me (wjbf1@le.ac.uk) and I will update.

ArchaeologyFull
program Time: Wednesdays, meet in School Foyer at 16:30. Cardiovascular
SciencesFull
programChemistryFurther info.The next seminar will be on Wednesday 23rd
November. Prof. Sarnjeet Dhesi from Dia…

Both packages allow you to collect and store references, have a Word toolbar to insert citations and bibliographies and to store and annotate PDFs.
Why might you prefer EndNote?It is very popular in certain subjects and you might find that your colleagues/supervisors are using it.If you wish to use the Law referencing style OSCOLA then you will need to use EndNote.If you are using a footnote style that requires short titles - EndNote can be customised better for this than RefWorks, and has a wider range of reference types.Be aware - the University license only covers the use of the EndNote desktop software on university owned computers. You can sync your desktop version with an online account to use at home, but the online account has less features than the desktop version.
Why might you p…

Help & training - they run training courses on a variety of Office programs. We would highly recommend the Word - Long Document Essentials training to anyone writing a thesis.

If you will need to use software packages to analysis statistics or data then we suggest you look at the Research Methods & Methodologies training available from our colleagues in Researcher Development.

A new academic year begins and its time to welcome new PhD students. We hope you enjoy your time here at Leicester.

The Library is here to help throughout your research. Our homepage and search can be found here. Please visit our Getting Started pages for all you need to know about using the Library. There are two librarians who support research students: Selina Lock for Science, Technology and Medicine, and William Farrell for Social Sciences, Arts & Humanities. We are here to help you: find information for your researchplan literature searches and systematic reviews get to grips with our resources and databasesuse bibliographic software to organise your referencesuse referencing styles when writing your thesis. The Library also provides a dedicated study space for you: the Nicholas Corah Graduate Reading Room on the first floor of the library. We offer 1-2-1 appointments, if you would like in-depth advice. Just email us: librarians@le.ac.uk or telephone 0116 252 2016.

Would you self-publish your monograph? The academic Lesley Hulonce has caused a stir this week by arguing for exactly that. Dissatisfied with the proposed sale price of her monograph from a traditional publisher (over £60) Hulonce decided to publish the book herself through Amazon self- publishing. Read more about her experience here. Other academics have expressed dissatisfaction with publishers; price and the quality of e-books seem to be a particular bug-bears. These are both issues that librarians sympathise with.

Some authors and imprints have been experimenting with different kinds of publishing. Zero Books (and its offspring Repeater Books) have pioneered a model of quicker, easier publishing that also encourages more imaginative writing. Martin Parker, a Professor here at Leicester, published his co-authored book on Daniel Defoe and the Bank of England with Zero in 2016. Palgrave have developed (copied?) their own version of this model with Palgrave Pivot.

RefWorks allows you to manage all the references you have used in your assignments or research.New RefWorks Users Create and organise a library of references that you can access via the webStore and annotate the PDFs of articlesImport references from bibliographic databases and other information sourcesCite while you write using add-in Word/Google Docs featuresAutomatically create bibliographies
If you have never used RefWorks then see our Getting Started Online TutorialExisting RefWorks UsersWhy should you upgrade to new RefWorks?
New RefWorks has lots of extra features: Store, view and annotate PDFsTag your referencesQuick Cite functionSave to RefWorks browser buttonWord 2016 citation toolbar (Add-In)Google Docs citation toolbar (Add-In)When should you upgrade to new RefWorks?
New RefWorks and legacy RefWorks will both be available to use during the 2016/17 academic year to allow you to upgrade to new RefWorks at a time that suits you.If you are currently working on your thesis and…

Last week we shared the most downloaded PhD Theses in the Leicester Research Archive (LRA), this time we highlight the most downloaded articles of 2015/16. These publications cover a wide range of research at Leicester from Law to Engineering, Geography to Museum Studies. Many of these articles are available thanks to Green Open Access arrangements.

I have been looking over the bog and video stats recently. It's always interesting to see what's popular, and it's no surprise that using EndNote dominates the top ten. Below I have reproduced the two most viewed posts: How to text-mine using EndNote, and how the EndNote plug-in for PowerPoint works.

For more help using EndNote there is lots more advice on our web pages.